Exploring Photos and Videos

Viewing Photos and Videos

Activity helps you stay up-to-date on recent activity from people you're following.

Tap and then Following at the top to see activity from people you follow. Tap You to see the most recent activity for you, including people who've started following you, @ mentions for you and likes and comments on your photos and videos. Note that the Following tab won't work for those who follow more than 1000 people.

Your activity on Instagram will be displayed in Following for anyone who follows you. If your account is set to private, only the people you've approved to follow you will see your activity.

Search & Explore shows you photos, videos and people that you might like. We’re always working to update the types of posts and people you see in Search & Explore to better tailor it to you. For example, we may show you photos and videos liked by people whose posts you’ve liked and/or posts that are liked by a large number of people in the Instagram community.

A notification will appear in Activity if your post appears on Search & Explore because it’s trending in the Instagram community. You'll also get a push notification if you have notifications turned on for Instagram.

If you see a post in Search & Explore, it doesn’t mean that everyone else is seeing it. We’re always working to update the types of posts you see in Search & Explore to better tailor it to you. For example, we may show you photos and videos that people you follow have liked or are liked by a large number of people.

Only photos and videos shared publicly will show up in Search & Explore. We don’t show photos from people who’ve set their profile to private or posts shared between people using Instagram Direct.

Liking Photos and Videos

Just double tap a photo or video to like it or tap ❤ below the post. If you’ve accidentally liked a post, tap the ❤ button below the image to unlike it.

When you unlike a post, the story that you liked the photo or video will disappear from Activity. If the person who shared the post has push notifications turned on, they'll still get the notification that you liked the photo or video.